I filed into the big room with the much-depleted crowd. Half the chairs had been removed, forcing us all forward. One of the three military men who had addressed us previously, Commander Jeffries, appeared on stage. Without preamble, he addressed us.

"Congratulations, you have all passed the initial round of qualifications. We will now be conducting the high-intensity phase of this tournament. Starting tomorrow, we will be bringing you onto the base every morning for a marathon 14-hour-a-day session, bringing you back to the hotel at night. Believe me, you're going to be exhausted. Your wrists will display your departure time. Do not be late."

"As for what you can expect, I'm afraid that part is classified. You won't be able to stream, but believe me, it's going to be exciting. Congratulations on making it this far.

"You have," he checked his watch, "something like 10 hours before the first transports leave in the morning. Be on time. If you show up with a hangover, that's your problem. Dismissed.”

I lifted my wrist. It displayed 0615, front entrance. That was pretty damn early. Still, I wasn't exactly planning to go see the fleshpots. That is, until Amber descended on me, beaming. She had a couple of others in tow with her: four big military guys, one in an RAF uniform, one wearing US Navy dress whites, a Marine and a Canadian airman. They looked distinctly unhappy as she descended on me, grinning.

"I knew you'd make it too, Colin. I watched some of your streams after we met on the plane, and I've been cheering for you."

"How'd your team do?" I asked her.

Her smile dimmed. "We were expecting team events, not individual. Most of them didn't make it. But I did," she added cheerfully, "and I'm going all the way. We're all going out for dinner and drinks. Wanna come?"

The guys with her were all glaring at me. I was keenly aware of being much younger than the rest, as well as in a wheelchair. I had a feeling they were the sort of guys who would say insulting things about my mother in a lobby if I kicked their asses too hard.

Me coming along would piss them off good, and I suddenly didn’t want to spend the evening staring at the wall in my hotel room. I fixed a grin on my face and nodded. "Bloody hell, yeah! Where are we going?"

Amber kept up a furious patter as we made our way down the crowded Vegas Strip. My wheelchair did great at parting the crowd, and our escort of big, overly muscled guys kept the tourists off. We made it down to the Bellagio, where Amber insisted on all of us posing in front of the fountains for a picture. I texted it to my mum with the caption, "Having a great time." She'd be happy to see that I had made friends, even if it was sort of a lie.

Even at nine o'clock at night, the sun was still up, though the Vegas neon blared brightly. The desert heat beat down on us. After making it another quarter mile or so down the Strip, Amber looked exhausted.

"The temp's getting to me. Must be forty degrees out here."

One of the Americans stared at her before grinning and shaking his head. “It's actually," he checked his wrist where he had a smartwatch strapped next to the band they'd given us, "a hundred and two."

"Then let's get inside," Amber said fervently. "Anyone got an idea where to go?"

And that's how I ended up inside the Hard Rock Cafe, Las Vegas, with music blaring loud enough to deafen me, eating an overpriced cheeseburger, no ketchup thanks, with a side of truffle fries, surrounded by kitschy rock memorabilia from bands that had been old and dead before my mum was out of O-levels. I was having a blast.

Amber sat next to me. The Marine on my other side had an annoying tendency to try to lean over me to talk to her. I didn't mind because when she wanted to speak back, she leaned in too. It was the closest I'd ever gotten to a hot girl in my whole life, and I didn't see my prospects looking up any time soon.

The talk quickly turned to just what we might be expecting next.

"What do you think it's going to be?" Amber yelled.

The RAF man, Desmond, shook his head. "No way of knowing till we get there, I reckon."

"They'll be wanting to test our ability to think on our feet," the Navy guy said. "I have a friend who works for big gaming companies. He got called in about three months ago on a top secret project for the DOD. Can't tell me anything about what it is, but when he heard I was coming here, he said I'd have a chance to see his handiwork and be sure to let him know if I had fun. He's worked for most of the next-gen MMOs that have come out in the last few years. I looked up his LinkedIn this morning, and he's connected with a bunch of other developers since he started the project so I stalked them a bit. There's a team out of Seattle that does interesting stuff with emergent programming in games. I suspect they're involved."

"What's all that mean?" asked the Marine. "I play games, I don't build them."

"I don't really know myself," the midshipman replied.

"I do," I volunteered. They looked at me. I think most of them, even the Marine leaning over me every 30 seconds, had forgotten I was there.

"Oh yeah?" the Canadian bloke asked politely.

"Sure. So these days it's all about making a game that can last more than 30 hours, right? I mean, some of us like playing the same level of Mario Kart over and over, trying to shave half a second off of our time," I grinned in what I hoped was a self-deprecating manner. "But the average player doesn't. They want something new. It takes, what, five years or more to develop a AAA title? And then somebody plays it for 60 hours and throws it away? That's no good. You want them coming back.”

“Makes sense. That’s what expansions are for,” Desmond said.

“Right, but even that takes time the studios don’t want to spend. Instead, you want the developers to write code that writes quests and scenarios for you. Ideally, things that can emerge on the fly based on what else the player has been doing. So, the game reacts to the choices the player makes and generates new scenarios for them. It's been tried in various games, but it has never worked particularly well, because the generated levels and monsters tend to be pretty generic and samey.”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

I took a bite of my burger, thinking it over, then added, “Wouldn't wonder if they've taken some tech from the reality engine and reverse engineered it as much as they can, and come up with something cool. I'll bet you, the next generation of gaming is going to look pretty different from this one. I’d say I'm excited to see it, but honestly," I picked up the last of my fries, "I think where we're going will be better."

"I'll drink to that," the Marine said, raising his beer. Amber and I were the only ones not drinking, me because I was underage, and Amber for her own reasons. Maybe she wasn't 21 yet. I wasn't that good a judge of women's ages.

After dinner, one of Amber's harem suggested we go clubbing. She pouted.

"I tried last night at MGM. They wouldn't let me in because I'm not 21. And Colin's even younger.”

“Maybe we could do something else," the midshipman suggested, “like laser tag.” He glanced at me, went pink, shook his head. "Uh, sorry."

"Don't worry," I said cheerfully, "I'm looking forward to ditching this thing in a few weeks."

"Oh yeah,” he said, "The reality engine will fix you right up, won't it? My grandma's got liver cancer. She's trying to get into the program, but she's only stage three and has a bit of time. She's cranky as hell about it, though."

"The club at the Galaxy lets any of the tournament people in," Desmond put in. "One of the guys I was hanging out with last night was only 17. He got in no problem."

Amber jumped up. "Then we'll go there."

Thirty minutes later, I found myself in a nightclub playing trance music while all around me, good-looking young people in skimpy clothes jumped up and down. I could get in the door, but I couldn't order a drink, so I found myself nursing a Coke with way too much ice in it at a table in one dark corner.

I sort of got the appeal of Vegas, but it wasn't working for me. Maybe if I had my legs, or I was a couple years older, or girls gave me a second glance. I'd figured out at some point that Amber had dragged me along mostly to make herself feel safe around that group of strapping guys. I supposed I should feel flattered, but it just made me grouchy. I was going to get out of this damn wheelchair, and I was going to be nobody's pity invite or involuntary wingman ever again.

A woman approached my table, swaying slightly. At first, I thought she was drunk or a hooker. Her outfit was bizarre, even by Vegas standards: a skimpy white leotard, tall, shining silver boots, and a pink boa wrapped around her shoulders. She had a circlet around her head with a loop over one eye like a square monocle. Then, as she got closer, I noted with a jolt that her ears were pointed and her skin a little too pink. She wasn't human.

The woman came right up to me and sat down.

"Hello, Colin Trevelyan," she said in a low-pitched voice. Her tones were absolutely musical. I found myself entranced by her voice and her overly large eyes.

"I am Patriona with the Proxima Corporation. Have you heard of Proxima?"

I had, faintly. "You're one of the ones who came here and turned on the reality engine."

"That's right," she said, inclining her head. "We have been working on Earth's behalf for some time now, even before we made our presence in your system known. Thanks to our intervention, your reality engine, which had been defunct for millennia, is up and running once again, allowing your species to take your place among the galactic stage."

“Proxima’s one of the outfits that Shad Williams showed up, aren't you?"

Her pink skin tone deepened just a bit, from rose to something approaching a red. “That is not how my corporation would describe it. I'm here, Colin — May I call you Colin?"

"Call me whatever you like. Just follow me on Twitch." I laughed at my own pathetic joke.

The woman stared at me a second or two longer than I had expected before tapping her headband. "Done."

I swallowed. I hadn't really expected her to follow me. I made a note to try to figure out who she was and do some snooping back. "So you've been watching me here at the tournament?" It felt kind of cool to be the focus of intergalactic attention.

"And a few select others," Patriona agreed. "Your name has risen to the top of my attention, though, and I decided to make contact in person. We like what you're doing here, Colin. We like it so much that I'm extending an offer to you right here, right now."

She produced a small, transparent device about the size of a smartphone, I guessed serving a similar function. I had no idea where she pulled it from, since her outfit didn't seem to have pockets. She sat at a long table in front of me, and words appeared in the air in front of my eyes.

A job offer.

"We would like to offer you a contract to come and work for us for a period of five years, with an option to renew for another five. You would be helping us with our reality engine exploitation attempts in other star systems. We would take the responsibility of helping you receive reality engine integration here in your own system before going elsewhere. That will allow you access to a class and various abilities, and in your case," she looked pointedly at my wheelchair, "bodily regeneration. It is unfortunate that your species does not already have this capability, but it's one of the things that made me eager to seek you out in person."

I scrolled through the contract. There was a lot of legalese. I've never been good at that sort of thing, and it makes me suspicious. I found the part where it mentioned the five-year term with another five.

"It says here five galactic cycles. How does that translate into earth years?"

“I merely tried to simplify it for your understanding, she said. It actually refers to the cycles of reality engine exploitation. Those periods can vary. Sometimes they're substantially under a year.

“You are, of course, welcome to have this contract reviewed by a lawyer of your own choosing. However I am returning to your reality engine in 74 of your hours with everyone who has accepted my offer. We may not be back to Earth for some time."

She leaned in, awfully close. She might be an alien but she was still an attractive woman, and her sultry voice hit me somewhere below the belt.

"Right now, Colin, if I'm being honest, a large part of our interest in you is because of your participation in this tournament. Should you fail out of it, it would be a clear sign that our interest was incorrect, and you are not the candidate we are looking for."

"And if I should win, I don't need your contract,” I threw back.

"No, because you'll be taking the human offer," she said. "Have they even showed you a contract?"

I hesitated.

“That's because they're not giving you one. If you win at this tournament you will be drafted into earth military forces. Are you aware that pretty much every military on your planet has clauses in its contracts that say, even if the term is for four years, that they can retain you at need in case of national emergency? Or, in this case, international emergency?"

I shook my head. “I think maybe I'd heard something like that. That's how they can call up retired people if they need to in a war footing.”

"Your planet is on a path putting it at odds with the rest of the galaxy," Patriona said. "Even if not outright war, you'll be competing with factions vastly stronger than yourself. If you are at all competent at what you do, then your people are not going to let go of you anytime soon.”

She might have a point. I hadn’t thought beyond winning this tournament and getting my legs back. Shad Williams wasn’t inviting me because he felt sorry for me. He wanted to put me to work.

Patriona must have sensed she was getting to me. She set her hand on my arm, raising goosebumps. “My contract will allow you to earn soul coin of your own, at a rate that will allow you to secure a comfortable existence anywhere in civilized space. You'll also be learning valuable skills and making contacts to let you strike out on your own, if you so choose. There is a very lucrative lifestyle available to you as a reality engine exploit professional. I'm pretty sure that your Earth military will not be offering you such a deal."

She had a point there. I knew that various militaries never paid their specialists what they could make in the private sector. With a reality engine capable of regenerating wounds and restoring youth, it really might be possible to keep someone in uniform for decades.

They'd dangled this lure in front of my face, and I hadn't questioned it. Now I had an alternative. I hesitated. "Can I have a copy of the contract?”

"I've sent it to your publicly available email. You have 72 hours to make a decision. My contact info is included with this email. I advise you, Colin Trevelyan, to think carefully. You will not get a do-over if you mess up this."